thankful thursdays 4/7

Apr 7, 2011

* Miracles abound! You know how I was dying for a different sewing machine last week during the quilt project? Well, it is completely out of our budget right now, but I have a ton of sewing projects I am trying to work on…receiving blankets for Cousin Amy, a purse for Keziah, sundresses for Keziah and Annes, a crayon roll for Annes, and some skirts for all the girls. I cannot do them with either of our machines…one of them skips stitches and one of sews crooked and is either a sloth or a leopard. Crazy-making! Well, I looked on craigslist a few days ago and a woman was selling her Janome 4612 Travelmate for $35!!!! This isn’t a fancy machine at all, but it looks and feels sturdy…and it is a Janome, so it should work well. Keziah and I are hoping to get started on her sundress right after lunch. I have high hopes it will be a HUGE improvement over our current sewing situation.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
* We made mobiles in Math Alive! yesterday and the children loved it! Super fun way to learn about balance and centers of gravity. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so no pictures of their awesome creations.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
* I am thankful for healthy children who can run and climb and sing and fish and hike and all sorts of other things with their wonderful bodies. We have a friend whose three and a half month old baby has just been diagnosed with leukemia. Ironically, little Graham is Daniel’s cousin…this family is being hit with trials the size of Alaska…and now we are all praying for Graham to beat the odds and live.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
* I am grateful for a husband that puts up with my early morning and late night crazy talk and loves me anyway. I say some really ridiculous/awful things sometimes and he brings me back to reality.
——————————————————————————————————————————–* My new book light!!!! Yippee! I have been using a $1.00 book light for the past year and while it was certainly worth a dollar, I don’t think it was worth much more than that. The light it casts illuminates about three words at a time, it frequently shorts out, and it falls over on my book if I so much as breathe in its direction. This week I went to Barnes and Noble with my $20 gift card to buy a new commonplace book. I couldn’t find one that spoke to my soul so Richard encouraged me to look at book lights. We found one we thought would work well, but “well” is an understatement! It is awesome! The package said it had six super-bright LED lights, but I had no idea just how much light I had been missing out on with my $1 piece of work. It is rechargeable by USB cord, clips onto your book fabulously well without harming the spine or pages, and (yes, it has even more amazing features!) it has a stand to hold it up to function as a lamp. Last night my reading was glorious for the first time in months!!!
——————————————————————————————————————————–* Librivox – what a great resource it is. It is so handy to download and listen to audio books in the blink of an eye….and all for free! Keziah is listening to A Little Princess right this minute.
——————————————————————————————————————————–* My vacuum. I am so grateful to have a handy sucking machine to whisk away all the dirt in this house. I just cleaned the tank out in the garage and nearly died. SO MUCH DOG HAIR!!!! At least 10 gallons of dog hair and dirt and popcorn and paper and plastic and who knows what else. Somehow I have neglected to clean it out recently and had noticed it wasn’t sucking that well…no I know why! It was completely full. I emptied the bucket and then refilled it with all the stuff that was stuck up in the filter…it was a whole other bucket full! I have no idea how it turned on at all! Seeing all that dirt made me so thankful for a way to remove it from my home on a daily basis.

p.s. I just vacuumed the upstairs and whoa, baby! There was more sucking power coming out of that thing than we have heard in years! I was squealing with delight (and driving Blythe bonkers with my exitement) as I heard all that dirt coming out of the carpets!
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Colloquium tonight on The Optimistic Child…can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts on this insightful book!